Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal will get closer look

Note: This is an updated version of a story published in Wednesday’s print edition of the Times Union. This version includes comment from Comcast and Time Warner Cable obtained after the newspaper’s deadline on Tuesday afternoon.

An Albany-based consumer advocate has scored a major victory to open up Time Warner Cable’s $45 billion sale to Comcast Corp. to more public scrutiny.

Gerald Norlander, an attorney who advocates on behalf of utility customers across the state through an initiative called New York’s Utility Project, had been seeking to force Time Warner Cable to make public telephone service quality reports on file with the state Public Service Commission.

On Friday, the PSC ruled that Time Warner Cable would indeed have to make public unredacted copies of the filings, which show how quickly the company restores telephone outages and hooks up new customers.

The decision helps bolster Norlander’s case that neither Time Warner Cable nor Comcast have been able to prove to regulators that their merger will benefit consumers.

The PSC is expected to rule on the merger in October. Under state law, the merger has to have a tangible benefit to consumers, either in lower rates or better services, or both.

Norlander doesn’t believe either scenario will occur under the current structure of the merger. Comcast has told investors the deal will result in more than $1 billion a year in synergy savings, something Norlander says will lead to higher prices and worse customer service.

“How can they save a billion a year without cutting?” asked Norlander.

Norlander says that previous redacted telephone reports that Time Warner Cable filed with the PSC before the commission’s most recent ruling showed “poor performance” by the company in restoring telephone outages. Although the PSC regulates phone service in the state, it does not look at customer service for Internet or cable TV.

Comcast has said that the merger will mean better service and more choices for its new upstate New York customers, but it deferred comment for this story to Time Warner Cable, since the Norlander case involved Time Warner Cable. Norlander, however, has sought that Comcast file similar reports with the PSC after the merger.

“Comcast and Time Warner Cable have been the leaders in all of the industry’s most important innovations of the last 25 years and this merger will accelerate the pace of that innovation,” Time Warner Cable spokesman Scott Pryzwansky told the Times Union. “Comcast has built an industry-leading platform and innovative products and services, and we’re excited to be part of delivering all of the possibilities of cable’s superior broadband networks to more American consumers.”

The public officially has until Aug. 8 to comment on the merger, although the commission is expected to accept comments well after that date.

Comcast’s customer service practices have been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons. An audio recording of a nasty customer service representative refusing to allow a customer to cancel service went viral in recent weeks, causing an Internet sensation and an uproar among consumers.

In a statement posted to its blog on July 15, Comcast called the interaction with the customer “unacceptable,” and added that it was investigating the call.

“While the overwhelming majority of our employees work very hard to do the right thing every day, we are using this very unfortunate experience to reinforce how important it is to always treat our customers with the utmost respect,” Tom Karinshak, Comcast’s senior vice president of customer experience, wrote in the blog post.